Everything Starts With Accountability

An Excerpt from the book War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team gives some great insight into how Bill Belichick set up the New England Patriot organization.  This excerpt written by Tedy Bruschi shows how the leaders within the team held each other accountable:

"We had the formula down," Tedy Bruschi says. "My locker was on the left, Willie McGinest's locker was on the right, and there was a door in the middle of us. And as early as we got there and as late as we stayed, we saw everyone who walked in and we saw everyone who walked out. And everyone who walked in late got a comment, everyone who walked out early got a comment about what they did that day. We held them accountable as soon as they walked in the door. Me and Willie, we policed that locker room as soon as you walked in."

"If we smelled you, you know, we wanted to know what was in your hand.  What were you eating?  Did you bring in the McDonald's bag?  We wanted to know where you were going once you came in, did we have a meeting in one minute, or are you here to work out?  Even if you were some veteran who came in from another team, we didn’t care where you were from because we were establishing ourselves as world champions, and we felt like, this is how we do things around here. We're going to teach you.”

War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team